Finding Your Ancestors in the 1950 U.S. Census
We know the 1950 census counted over 150 million people living in the United States and its territories. Because of the 72-year-old privacy law protecting personal data, information about these people was not available to those searching their family history. But all that changes on April 1,2022.
No, it is not an April Fool's joke; that date marks the official release of the 1950 census data by the National Archives and Records Administration. We will be able to see the names and additional information about our ancestors to help add to the stories of their lives, at least for those who were alive in 1950.
Of course, the release of the data doesn't mean it will be instantly searchable. However, Ancestry.com is planning to use sophisticated artificial intelligence and handwriting recognition technology to create an initial index from digital census images. This change will speed up the availability of the census to researchers. Volunteers with FamilySearch will review the automated index to ensure that every name is included and indexed correctly. The human review will help refine the index to ensure that everyone included in the census can be found.
The slides for this talk maybe found on our resource folders at https://bit.ly/WindhamGenMeetings
